Wyngaerde's view of London, circa 1550 shows Suffolk Place on the west side of Borough High Street as "a large and most sumptuous building," surmounted by towers and cupolas. Its size and importance so much impressed the unknown draughtsman of the plan of Borough High Street of circa 1542 that he made it appear larger than St. Saviour's Church or any other building in the locality. Stow states that the house was built by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in the time of Henry VIII and later writers have followed his lead, but the Brandon family had had a residence on the site for at least half a century previously. Sir John Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, stayed at "Brandennes Place in Sothwerke" in 1465, and it is probable that both the Sir William Brandon who was killed on Bosworth Field, and his father, also Sir William, who survived him, lived there. Sir Thomas Brandon, son of the elder Sir William, who inherited the house from his mother in 1497, added to the grounds both by purchasing land and by leasing part of the Bishop of Winchester's Park. He lived in Southwark in lavish style. His will mentions the plate, hangings, carpets and beds in the house, all of which he left to Lady Jane Guildford for life with reversion to his nephew Charles, and gowns of cloth of gold which were to be broken up and made into "coats for the rood" of St. Saviour's Abbey at Bermondsey, of Barking Abbey, and of "Our Lady Pew" at Westminster..